W. Eugene Smith - any idea what cameras he used?

[swhiser]

Hard to improve upon burninfilm's synopsis above. But just having finished Jim Hughes excellent bio of WES (WHICH IS A MUST-READ!) , I picked up some interesting insights.

WES was shooting Leica IIIf's and IIIc's in Pittsburgh. When his car was broken into and a bunch of prints and cameras were stolen, he immediately went and bought an M3. But the cameras were reclaimed when they found one and developed the film to find images of the perps, which the cops helped them track down and get the cameras out of hock (for like $40).

Also, he seemed to like the Ikoflex and had a couple of them in the Pacific along with his Speed Graphic on the <em>Bunker Hill</em>. You'll see the final image that was salvaged from the camera that was blown out of his hands on Okinawa; it's a square, so I deduce may be from his Ikoflex. Perhaps there's some actual knowledge of this somewhere? The nature of his wounds -- a couple fingers (left hand) badly wrecked and a second mouth back by the hinge of his left jaw -- are consistent in my mind with what a piece of shrapnel would do if one were peering down into the finder of a 2 1/4 TLR.

We also learn from Jim Hughes that WES received a lot of support from Minolta in the 1970's in Japan (so he and Aileen probably had Minoltas in Minimata) and that he was shooting a Pentax SLR (Spotmatic?) and very much enjoyed the WYSIWYG nature of the viewfinder.

One last item, people apparently have inquired as to how the Jazz Loft images were so decent when the light was so bad, and you hear on some youtube archival footage someone imply that he used a monopod (probably with a Lieca) there. (Makes a lot of sense 'cause that's what I would do in that situation ;-)

It's interesting. Cameras are not particularly important; not more important than LIGHT, or VISION certainly -- but it helps the comprehension of WES' attitude and his facility.

[aoresteen]

WGS in an article (Camera 35?) stated that he would load two rolls of film on a single 35mm SS reel so he could develope twice as much film in a tank. Sounded resonable so I tried it. The results were a disaster! I had kisses all over my film. My respect for Gene's ability in the darkroom went up by about a factor of 50 times. He truely was an artist & a craftsman in the darkroom.

[mdarnton]

Did you load it back-to-back?